Updated 10:00 pm, Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The facts of the case remain, as all sides acknowledge, clear -- Haq left the Tri-Cities on July 28, 2006, drove to the center, where he gunned down federation worker Pam Waechter and wounded five other women. Equally clear and uncontested is Haq's history of mental illness, which prosecutors admit while arguing that Haq's psychological state the day of the shooting does not meet the threshold set for a not guilty verdict.

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That clarity will be of little assistance to jurors, who will be asked to determine whether Haq's mind was clouded by psychotic delusion, as his attorneys claim, or simple hate.

In police reports left largely unchallenged by Haq's defense team, investigators describe the terror felt by those at the Belltown neighborhood office as Haq barged into the center with a gun at the back of a teenage girl. Having gained entry to the secure Third Avenue facility, Haq spoke to the girl before releasing her.

"I'm only doing this for a statement," Haq allegedly said.

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Arriving at the center's reception desk, according to police statements, Haq opened fire on workers there; Haq allegedly chased down Waechter, already injured in the initial shooting, and shot her in the head as she attempted to flee. Then, holding a gun to the head of a injured woman who was 17 weeks pregnant at the time, Haq offered his demands to a 911 operator.

Offering his name and social security number, Haq allegedly went on to demand that the United States military leave Iraq, complained that Muslims in the Middle East were "getting pushed around" by Israel and asked to be connected with CNN.

When the operator told him she couldn't make that happen, he agreed to surrender to police. Following the shooting, Haq made numerous anti-Semitic comments to investigators.

In addition to an aggravated murder charge which would carry a mandatory life sentence and several attempted murder charges, King County prosecutors have charged Haq under the state hate crime statute.

Now, though, Haq's attorneys point to those statements and his outlandish demands as evidence that Haq, now 34, was insane at the time of the crime. Such a finding, were the jury to make it, would see Haq confined at a state hospital until he was deemed fit to be released.

The key questions for jurors will likely be whether Haq could "perceive the nature and quality" of his alleged actions or "tell right from wrong" while committing them. If his mental illness prevented him from making either distinction, a finding of not guilty by reason of insanity would follow under state law.

"I just want to tell you the reason I did this is because I want to become a martyr. Martyr," Haq allegedly told his mother. "You know I wanted to go to heaven. I want to be a Jihadi. I did it to be a Jihadi.

"Now I pray every day for martyrdom."

Earlier this year, a King County Superior Court judge ruled the tapes could be admitted at trial despite objections from Haq's attorney.

In part to support those tapes, prosecutors expect to call a University of Washington Islamic studies professor to explain the religion to jurors. That move has drawn fire from Haq's attorneys, who claim in court documents that such testimony would play on juror's biases.

"The state claims it is not, by seeking to introduce an Islamic Studies expert into the case, attempting to secure a conviction by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice in case that should turn on the analysis of Mr. Haq's mental health," Haq's attorneys said in court documents. "The defense remains unconvinced of this. But even if that were not what the state is seeking to do, there is a very real danger that that would be the result."

Objecting to the professor's testimony in pretrial memoranda, the defense notes that the professor casually mentioned Osama bin Laden during a deposition and at one point contrasted Haq's thinking during the shooting with that of a James Bond villain.

Responding to the defense complaint, Senior Deputy Prosecutor Erin Elhert told King County Superior Court Judge Paris Kallas that the state's expert will "opine that these comments by Mr. Haq are consistent with a dated and extreme reading of the Koran."

"The state will not argue that Haq is a terrorist," Ehlert told the court. "The state's argument will be founded on a religious interpretation of statements and commentary."

Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday morning, with the trial stretching into late November. Haq remains confined at King County Jail; in addition to aggravated first-degree murder, he has been charged with five counts of attempted first-degree murder, unlawful imprisonment and malicious harassment, the state's hate crime statute.